Doorstop

SUBJECTS:  NSW ICAC; Education funding; No-confidence motion

E&OE................................

Hon Christopher Pyne MP: The revelations in the ICAC in Sydney today have proven that the New South Wales Labor Party’s problems were well known to Federal Labor figures from New South Wales as early as 2006 with respect to Ian Macdonald and Eddie Obeid and that those figures, Doug Cameron and Anthony Albanese, didn’t take the necessary steps to remove a bad egg from the New South Wales Labor Party.  And if the allegations about Mr MacDonald’s bad behaviour occurred after 2006, it’s a very serious matter that Doug Cameron as the head then of the Australian Metal Workers’ Union and now a Senator protected him and allowed him to remain in office and in fact today is defending him in the ICAC hearings in Sydney, describing him as a hard-working and effective Minister.  Anthony Albanese, as a senior member of the hard left in New South Wales, was aware of the claims being made about Ian Macdonald in terms of his bad behaviour and acquiesced to him being allowed to remain in the Parliament.  This was in spite of the fact that the then Assistant General Secretary Luke Foley from the Left, who is now Leader of the Labor Party in the Legislative Council in Sydney, wanted Ian Macdonald removed.  If he had been removed in 2006 much of the allegations that have been made about Ian Macdonald would not have been able to occur because he would not have been a Minister in the Labor Government at that time.  So Labor has some very serious questions to answer at the Federal level.  The Sussex Street machine protected Ian Macdonald through Doug Cameron and members of the hard left.  That machine has infected Federal Labor in Canberra and Julia Gillard needs to answer questions about what she intends to do about people who are either on her frontbench, or in the case of Doug Cameron in her Party Room, who wield very significant influence who didn’t stop Ian Macdonald in spite of being warned about it in 2006.

Journalist: What would you say about Doug Cameron, the fact that he hasn’t moved to distance himself even now from Ian Macdonald?

Pyne: Well Doug Cameron is displaying a false sense of loyalty but he is also displaying that tribal Labor protection that has allowed Labor to sink into the swill of corruption and allegations of malpractice and criminal activity over the last thirty or forty years in New South Wales.  It’s just the attitude that Doug Cameron is displaying today that shows how thick and how rancid the New South Wales Labor Party has become.  They are infecting Federal Labor in Canberra and it’s time Julia Gillard took action to stop the disease spreading throughout her own caucus and her frontbench.

Journalist: What negotiations are you having with crossbenchers about a no-confidence motion?

Pyne: Well I talk to the crossbenchers on a regular basis and I have talked to crossbenchers since the Opposition announced that we’d put a motion of no-confidence on the notice paper.  I am confident that we are making progress with the crossbenchers but that remains to be seen when the debate is held and the vote is put.

Journalist: Could it be put on budget day?

Pyne: Look it won’t be because at least one of the crossbenchers has indicated that budget week would not be an appropriate time and we want to maximise our chance of success.  We want the Government to go to the people.  We want the people to have a say in who their Prime Minister is.  We’ve had the faceless men choosing the Prime Minister off and on over the last five years.  It’s time the Australian public had the earliest opportunity to choose the Prime Minister and the Government that they want.  A government that focuses on job security, border protection, cost of living and economic management.  We won’t get that under this Government so we want to maximise our chance of bringing the Government to an election and that means we will listen very closely to the crossbenchers and what they want.

Journalist: I’m interested in your thoughts on Gonski and what Gillard announced.

Pyne: Well Prime Minister Gillard yesterday abandoned the Gonski Report.  Very publicly and very humiliatingly for David Gonski.  The central element of the Gonski Report was a national uniform school funding model.  The Prime Minister said yesterday that there would not be a national uniform school funding model.  They would try and achieve national consistency which is what we have now and what it seems to me is that the Government is limbering up to reindorse the current school funding model under a re-badged name and then try and pretend it is a response to the Gonski Report.  It isn’t and the Australian Education Union, supporters of the Gonski Report, should be embarrassed that the Labor Party has so publicly and humiliatingly abandoned them.  And the Minister Peter Garrett who has said that the one thing that the Government would not do is keep the current funding model has been left like a shag on a rock while the Prime Minister has abandoned him, yet another victim of her ambitions to cling to power.

Journalist: The Gonski Report called for flexibility across all jurisdictions.  Isn’t that what she announced yesterday?

Pyne: No that’s not what she announced yesterday and it’s not really what David Gonski meant by flexibility.  Flexibility exists in many forms.  The key element of what he wanted was a national uniform school funding model and a student resource standard which was the same for every student.  The Prime Minister abandoned that yesterday.  She admitted that it’s not possible to implement a national uniform school funding model because of the Catholic systems, the independent schools, different approaches that the six states take as well as the two territories.  So the Prime Minister has raised expectations monumentally in the education sector.  But can I also say that the Government has handled this in the traditional, the incompetence that they have shown over the last five and a half years.  We are now in almost April.  Neither the states nor the sectors have any clear understanding of what they are being asked to sign up to.  The Prime Minister needs to release the full funding model that the Government proposes to take to COAG to give the states and the sector time to look at it.  And of course even if there is full agreement at COAG and legislation passing in June, the Prime Minister is giving the sector five months to implement a new school funding model which is impossible.  And so therefore they should accept the Coalition’s generous offer to extend the current SES funding model for another year to give people time to implement whatever the Government and the states agree.

Journalist: So what will you do?  I mean even if a deal is done will you support that or will you repeal Gonski if it gets in?

Pyne: Well there is no Gonski anymore, so I should correct you. There is no Gonski model. Whatever model the Government comes up with there is no relationship at all to David Gonski’s report. Most of the recommendations have already been rejected by the Government. For example he suggested that only a minimum percentage of children, schools that have Indigenous children should be funded – that’s been rejected. He suggested a national school authority to set the SRS – that’s been rejected. He didn’t recommend a national school improvement plan and that has been adopted by the government, which we don’t support. So there is no Gonski model. There is a cobbled together pig’s breakfast of a proposal from the Government, which as far as we can see has at least five models with different indexation rates. Now we need to have a clear understanding of what the Government proposes. We will wait to see what they do, how the states and then sectors react and then we’ll form a view.

Journalist: But if you are, if the Coalition is the new government in September, will you use the Gonski Model for a funding change to schools?

Pyne: We support the current SES funding model. We support indexation on the 10 year average, which is about 6 per cent and will continue that. That is already forecast in the budget, already in the budget figures. We are attracted to the loadings in the Gonski Report, so that extra money for disabled children, Indigenous, non-English speaking background and low SES children and we will fund that through national partnerships money. So there is lot’s to the, that can be done in school funding that is sensible and calm and measured. But we need to give the school sector time, and at least a year to implement a new funding model. So the first thing we will do if elected is continue the current model for at least 12 months in order to give schools the time they need to change their systems.

Journalist: (Inaudible)

Pyne: Well, I’ve made it very clear that we are talking about the allegations that surround Ian Macdonald, but we do know from Luke Foley own evidence to ICAC yesterday that in 2006 he, Anthony Albanese, Doug Cameron and others had lunch at the, or dinner at the Noble House Restaurant in Sydney and Luke Foley at that time, put to them that Ian Macdonald should not be endorsed to stay in the Parliament in the Legislative Council.  That advice was rejected on the say so of Doug Cameron.  Doug Cameron continues to defend Ian Macdonald today and what that tells us from a Federal Labor point of view is that they have learnt no lesson at all.  Doug Cameron should be embarrassed today that he hasn’t learned the lesson that the taxpayers money in New South Wales under the New South Wales State Labor Government was not the plaything of Ministers like Ian Macdonald.

ENDS.